About Us

Max Stager, MA, LPC, NCC
Licensed Professional Counselor

Hi!  Thanks for being interested in looking me up!  

I integrate different perspectives and therapy approaches probably because I experienced so many important paradoxes or contradictions during my youth.  I grew up in the Midwest in a university town.  While the state was rural and focused on agriculture, the city was built around the university. The city was a mix of rural and progressive values.  One parent grew up on a farm, attained a college degree, and was a manager whereas the other parent grew up in a big city, obtained a high school equivalency diploma, and was a tradesman.  There are some differences for you.  Both were veterans so I grew up knowing more about war than most of my friends.  My grandmother was independent, once running for office in a small county election though being outnumbered because she felt it was the right thing to do.  She was someone that I not only loved but admired.  

Even though I postponed college, much to my mother’s chagrin, for a year, which gave me perspective and motivation once I started college, I just kept going back until I had a Master’s degree in counseling.  I have worked in human services for over 20 years.  For a long time, I have felt that serving people is where I belong.  I enjoy the privilege of working with couples so they can turn their marriage around, with those who have experienced trauma so that they may be healed, and with teens so that they can become happy and successful adults.  

I have experienced the tingling excitement of new relationships, the companionship of ongoing ones, the agony of conflict, and the pain of those that are ending.  I have learned much about relationships, communication, my thoughts, feelings, and behavior.  

I have experienced some tremendous ups and some bitter downs as a parent of two wonderful and grown children.  I like animals, enjoying dogs, cats, and horses.  At one point, I worked at a treatment center that was on a ranch where they had 30 or more horses.  I am glad that I live in sunny Colorado where I can hear the whistle of the wind through the pines while I can enjoy the scent of those very trees. Sometimes, I can be seen riding my bike along some trails.